9.1 Emphatic tones

Emphatic tones increase the semantic prominence of separate words of an utterance or its overall prominence by attaching emotional colouring to the utterance. Emphasis applied to a tone increases the force of articulation and, consequently, loudness. Very often pitch characteristics are changed: high or low static emphatic tones are pronounced on extra-high and extra-low pitch levels respectively. The upper point of a kinetic tone can be moved to an extra-high pitch level and the lower point can reach extra-low pitch level. Thus emphatic voice range is wider than the normal one.

Normal voice range Emphatic voice range

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The semantic role of an emphatic static tone is closely connected with the meaning of a nuclear tone. For example, emphasis on the onset syllable of a falling tune increases the energetic character of the statement, imperative, or exclamation. There is no limit to the number of emphatic static tones that may be used in an utterance, but it is not common of many successive words to take emphatic stresses. Such patterns usually have an emphatic kinetic tone in the nucleus and are uttered under conditions of considerable excitement. An emphatic tone is marked by doubling the tonetic stress mark. E. g.:

You Know e xactly what I’m talking about!

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9.2 Emphatic nuclear tones

The emphatic high rising tone is used in questions to express a great surprise or a shocked reaction, e.g.: A: Tom’s leaving tonight. – B: ′′Is he? ′′Really?

The emphatic low rising tone often expresses a feeling of impatience, e.g.: A: I’m all a,,gainst it. – B: Don’t be ri,,diculous!

The emphatic falling tones are:

- energetic and decisive in statements, e.g.: He ‘can’t brazen it `out!

- insistent and persuasive in Wh-questions and orders, e.g.: ‘What’s the `reason? ‘Go and `do it!

- strong and enthusiastic in exclamations, e.g.: You ‘don’t ``say!

A combination of emphatic static and kinetic tones increases the overall prominence of the utterance. In such a case emphatic stresses are frequently given not only to notional, but also to functional words, e.g.: A: ‘’Didn’t you ‘find my camera? – B: It ‘’wasn’t in ‘’my car!

Speech Exercises

Ex. 1 Show the difference in the expressiveness of speech through modifications of the speaker’s attitude and the subject matter.

1 a) – Why didn’t you answer? Didn’t you want or couldn’t you understand?

– I couldn’t under stand.

b) - Oh, dear. How did you lose them?

- I couldn’t think.

2 a) – Why don’t you say anything?

- I can’t hear you.

b) – Don’t be silly, Harry. Staying in bed is the only sensible thing to do.

- No seriously, Nora, I can’t bear it.

3 a) – You may call at the bookshop on your way home.

- Where’s that.

b) - You don’t mean to say you’ve forgotten about the interview tomorrow?

- What interview? Oh, that.

4 a) – I’ll do it myself.

- It isn’t easy.

b) – I suppose you ought to make another try and do it.

- But I tell you it isn’t easy.

Ex. 2 Replace the nuclear tone in the following utterances by an emphatic variant so as to express the suggested feelings. Provide an appropriate context for the original and the transformed utterances.

1 I’ll be back at about six. (insistence)

2 I didn’t ex pect them to be back soon. (contrast)

3 Look at those files. (impatience)

4 I went there last year. (disagreement)

5 By the underground? (incredulity, surprise)